


Paper Cuts

by 852_Prospect_Archivist



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Angst, Drama, First Times, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-10 23:54:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/791632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/852_Prospect_Archivist/pseuds/852_Prospect_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim contemplates the growing distance between him and Blair.<br/>This story is a sequel to Silk Flowers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paper Cuts

**Author's Note:**

> This is set after Sentoo Part 2, but before TSbyBS. Since the first story was BlairAngst, this is JimAngst to balance things out.

## Paper Cuts

by Silk

Author's webpage: <http://www.angelfire.com/ny4/tinsel/>

Author's disclaimer: Jim and Blair belong to PetFly and Paramount. (Yeah, yeah, that's what *they* say.) This work is not for profit.

* * *

Paper Cuts 

By Silk 

I've been sitting here all day long, watching him. Watching him flirt with the donut girl. Watching him grin cheekily at H. Watching him grow farther and farther away from me. 

It's like being at the scene of an accident. You feel something, sadness, powerlessness, clutching at your throat like someone's hand, and you think something, jealously, inappropriately, like that hand sliding down the center of your body with naked intention. 

And you gasp. 

It's not a loud noise. In fact, it's practically no noise at all. Except... 

...I can hear it. I always can. I'm a Sentinel. I'm Superman. I'm Jesus Fucking Christ. And oh, God, he just looked this way... 

...at me. 

Predictably, I hide. That sniggering you hear is courtesy of the reptilian part of my brain. All those fear-based responses have to come from somewhere. 

His heart is racing now. He's hyperventilating, too, though he's trying to slow down his breathing. He's conscious of my surveillance. I know he is. But it doesn't matter. I can't stop checking him out. It's like some outrageous Sentinel form of obsessive-compulsive disorder. 

"You want to go get a bite to eat, Chief?" I ask. 

"Sorry, Jim. I've got plans." 

He flashes that bright, brittle smile at me, and I swear I just want to shake him till he comes apart for me. Would he do that, do you think? Or would he just shrivel into himself, the way he always does lately? 

He's a husk of the man he used to be. Thinner, paler, faded. Like he's not really there. Like he's not really _real_. 

But he _is_ real. As real as Death. 

I sigh, and this time the noise I made does not go unnoticed. Sandburg stops smiling, stops talking, and freezes. 

Dammit, he laughs so easily with everyone else. But he takes one good look at me and he can't take a breath. I know he's afraid. Afraid I'll make him leave again. 

I hate living like this. I don't know what to say to reassure him. I don't even know if we're still friends. Were we ever just friends? Weren't we so much more than that? 

Or was that the problem? That we should have been. That we couldn't be. That _I_ couldn't be. 

There's a gap between us now. But I don't know how to cross it. 

That voice inside my head, the one I never listen to, is telling me, You do know, you've always known. I cover my ears, but I can't shut out the voice. 

"Jim? Are you all right?" 

Oh, God, _that_ voice is my salvation. I cling to it like the clueless idiot I've been for the past few years. 

I open my eyes. He's frowning. He's worried. His eyes are so clear, yet so dark. I stare at him like I've never seen him before. "No," I whisper, beginning to shake my head. 

Once he would have asked, Can I help? Once he wasn't afraid to bluster past my defenses. Once he would have given me what I needed, even when I didn't know what I was asking for. 

But now there is only fear and anxiety and pain. Overwhelming pain. Rising off him in deep, undulating waves. 

"Is there someone you'd like me to get?" he asks tentatively, as if he _knows_ that someone isn't him, can't ever be him. 

I can't look away from him. But I can't tell him what I can't admit to myself. How I feel is so wrapped up in who I am. 

"Jim!" His sudden exclamation makes me jump. I follow the path of his gaze and glance at my hands in surprise. 

My palms are criss-crossed with thin but lethal paper cuts. Most of them are superficial, but a few cut so deeply, they well up with blood, giving me the look of a sacrificial victim. 

"What did you do?" 

I crumple the weapon in my left hand and throw it into the wastebasket. I'm no stranger to self-inflicted pain. I've used it before, to keep from zoning, but this, this mutilation was different. It was as if I needed to feel something approximating Sandburg's pain and this was the only way I could accept. 

"You don't have to hurt yourself anymore," he whispered. "I'll go." 

When his voice broke on the word 'go', I felt him cradle my tortured hands within his, as though he could heal them. And me. 

Maybe he could. 

I owed it to both of us to let him try. 

End 


End file.
